


an endless road to rediscover

by proximally



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: (!! ikr it's a christmas miracle), Gen, POV Third Person, Post-Neutral Route (Undertale), References to Genocide Route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 17:27:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6529306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proximally/pseuds/proximally
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Flowey is defeated. The human who meets him in the void of the Barrier is not entirely the one he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	an endless road to rediscover

**Author's Note:**

> title from the lyrics of Hey Brother by Avicii.

It’s the end.

It _has_ to be the end: the human souls are gone, the fight is won - and not by Flowey. But...the expected blow never comes.

“...What are you doing?” he asks, glancing at them. They’re just...standing there. Watching. “Do you really think I’ve learned anything from this?” He snorts derisively, and turns away. “No.”

Silence. Not that that’s really unexpected. The human hasn’t said anything since he first met them; not to him, at least.

“Sparing me won’t change anything,” Flowey tells them. “Killing me is the only way to end this.”

Still they do nothing but stare.

“If you let me live… I’ll come back.”

...Their inaction is starting to creep him out.

“I’ll kill you,” he threatens. “I’ll kill _everyone._ ”

Is that…? Are they… smiling? Is that a smile? Scrap what he thought earlier, he’d prefer it if they went back to impassivity. At least that was vaguely _normal_ for them.

“I’ll kill everyone you love.”

He can’t help flinching at the sudden noise that ensues. They’re...laughing. At him. Gone is the mask of stone, replaced by a broad grin with too many teeth and wide eyes glittering with...something. It’s nearly familiar.

“You’re so melodramatic,” they say, extending a hand towards him. He dodges automatically, but there’s neither knife nor murderous intent: just an open palm. An offering. “Come on, Asriel. We’ve got better things to do than hang around in the void all day.”

Flowey blinks. Blinks twice. They click their tongue, like they’ve just remembered something.

“Oh, sorry - it’s ‘Flowey’ now, right? Well, come on, Flowey. Time’s a-wasting.” Their outstretched hand twitches, beckoning him. When, again, he doesn’t react, they roll their eyes, exasperated. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already. You’ve been calling me all this time.”

“... _Chara_ …?”

“See, that wasn’t so hard, now was it? Now come on, there’s a whole world out there for us to see. The Surface is more than just some dumb mountain and a dumber town. Don’t you want to see it?”

“...Chara…? B-but, how…?”

They shrug. “You called. I woke up. Now we’re going outside, like we should’ve done.” They walk a little closer, crouching down, and offer their open hand again. It’s a small hand, tanned, with nails that aren’t great but, equally, aren’t chewed and mutilated. The fingers are short, and aside from a pinkish mark on the pad of their thumb, the palm is unblemished. It’s not Chara’s hand.

The face isn’t theirs, either, but there are enough similarities that you’d be forgiven for mistaking this face for theirs. The nose is small and rounded, the cheeks full, the eyebrows strong enough to lift a bus. Their lips are thin, pulled into an unfamiliar smile. Chara never smiled like that, with their own face. Perhaps now that it’s someone else’s they’re not so afraid to.

It’s them, though. He’d recognise them anywhere.

He wraps a vine around the outstretched hand; gently, because he doesn’t know, really, how fragile this human body is compared to their last. Their smile widens, and they scoop him up and drop him on their shoulder, like a pirate with a parrot. Flowey might’ve protested any other time, but he’s too… well, not _happy_ , or _glad_ , because he’s still soulless, but as close to it as an emotionless being can become. He wraps himself around their arm and shoulder, and, together again after all these years, they pass the Barrier.

 

\--

 

The first thing Flowey notices is how _bright_ it is outside. The last time he was here, the sky was dull grey and gloomy; Chara had been annoyed, because for such a momentous occasion, shouldn’t it have been a nicer day? They’d so badly wanted to show him the sun, and the blueness of the sky, and stars that were further away than a few hundred metres.

“It’s a beautiful day outside,” they say, almost to themself. Their voice is...odd. Off. Like they’re reciting a poem. “Birds are singing, flowers are blooming… On days like these…” They blink slowly, and take a deep breath of fresh summer air. They turn to Flowey, and smile again. “Days like these, we should be heading down the mountain, don’t you think? Shout if you see something cool.”

They pause a moment to adjust their sock, but quickly pick a direction downwards. The way they pick through the rocks and undergrowth seems almost rehearsed; they don’t get stuck once, despite the vegetation having had centuries to obscure any safe path. Flowey pockets this thought for later: everything here is so _new._ It’s strange to be somewhere unfamiliar, after so many subjective decades (centuries?) with only the Underground to explore, but it’s not unwelcome. He feels his boredom alleviating with every step Chara takes.

They’re still quite high up when they come to a stop. There’s a beautiful view from here, thanks to a gap in the treeline, and a sudden drop they don’t get too close to. Flowey guesses Chara’s had enough of falling. Instead, they sit in the shade of a tree, legs outstretched over the bare rock surrounding it, and look out over the forest. It seems almost like the trees go on forever, except from a thin silver band out in the distance that separates the canopy from endless fields. There are dots, here and there, little buildings and the roads that connect them. A faint memory tells him the village from so long ago should be off to his left, hidden from this angle behind the greenery. A cool breeze floats by, tousling Chara’s hair and Flowey’s petals. It’s nice. Peaceful.

“I’m really glad you’re here,” they say, softly as though they don’t want to be overheard, except there’s nobody around but the two of them. “I didn’t...I didn’t think you’d want to come. I wondered, but...well.” They frown a little, still staring out at the horizon. “You said, once, that as long as I was around, maybe living on the surface wouldn’t be so bad. You won’t remember it, though, quit trying,” they advise, sparing Flowey a quick glance before returning their gaze to the bright blue sky. They continue, a little quieter. “It would be better, if you didn’t. I... _we,_ did some bad things to get there.” They pause, and pick at their nails. Flowey notes absently that they’re in much worse condition than they were inside the Barrier; had they been doing this the whole way down? “But...as angry as I was, and regardless of what I did after...what you said, that stuck with me. So.” They gesture one-handed at the scenery. “Here we are. On the surface. For as long as you like.”

There are many questions Flowey ought to ask, but the one that tumbles out of his mouth is not really one of them.

“What happened to you, Chara? You…” he trails off, unwilling to finish the sentence. Sure, he’s soulless and so incapable of regret or guilt, but just because he regularly crosses the line doesn’t mean he doesn’t know it’s there.

It doesn’t matter, anyway. Chara knows exactly how it would’ve ended. “I’m not normally this nice? This considerate?” they ask, and Flowey can’t quite bring himself to look them in the eye. They just sigh. “Yeah. I know. I just...it’s been a long time, Flowey. You know how it is, better than anyone. We’ve befriended everyone, and killed them. Solved every problem, and created more. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt…except not really, because we’d always reset. You were right. It’s...really tiring.”

“‘We’?”

“Frisk and I. The owner of this body. They’re still around; they did most of this run, actually. We’re still not sure how much Sans remembers, or has a record of, so...better safe than sorry.”

“...How does that make you safer?”

Chara, much to Flowey’s surprise, blushes. They suddenly look a lot more like their old self. “...I may have introduced myself as somebody other than Frisk…After having murdered his brother. Suffice to say he wiped the floor with me, several dozen times.”

Flowey can’t help but laugh. Usually this would be a death sentence, but _this_ Chara...this Chara just joins in. They’ve...really changed, haven’t they? This might be the first time he’s seen them laugh out of anything but grief or confusion. The oddness of it strangles his mirth. He thought...he thought he knew them, knew what they wanted. Now? He’s not so sure.

“You didn’t kill anyone this time, though.” They’re not laughing anymore.

“...No. No, I didn’t do a violence.” The smile resurfaces, if only briefly. “I - We - want this to be the last one. No more resets. So everything needs to be perfect.”

“...You call a dead king and an unbroken Barrier perfect?”

“I call time spent with my brother perfect,” they tell him, matter-of-factly. “Break the Barrier, and there’ll always be so much to do, so many people to see… Asgore always offers us the position of Ambassador, and it’s usually a good idea but we never really get to talk… Sometimes you refuse to leave the Underground at all.” They go quiet, and Flowey’s still too stunned by their first statement to even try to break the silence.

“We’ve tried so many times,” they say, and is that…is that a tremor in their voice? Surely not. This is _Chara_ , and Chara doesn’t cry. “We - _I_ \- just want everyone to be happy. Or as close as we can get.” They look at him then, with those big brown eyes that just aren’t the right shade, and he’s horrified to see a glimmer in them. “That includes you, Azzy. _Flowey._ We thought, maybe, this could be something interesting. Just...the surface. Without all the usual fuss. We’ll have to go back eventually, but there’s no time limit. What do you say, huh?”

Flowey...Flowey’s not sure how to react, face frozen in a confused sort of shock. Of all the things he expected his sibling to say, this isn’t it.

Chara takes his silence for reluctance, and turns their gaze back to the trees, a wry smile forming on their lips. It’s a smile more _them_ than any he’s seen so far, but for some reason he just wants them to stop. “If you don’t want to...that’s okay. I understand. I know...I know neither of us are the same as we used to be.”

This Chara is unfamiliar to him, so different to the one that resides in his memory. _Big kids don’t cry,_ they’d always told him, _don’t be such an idiot. Come on, it’s kill or be killed, just let me--!_ And now here they are, so many years later, tears sparkling in their stolen eyes and doing their best to find a solution that saves _everyone_. Even the humans.

Flowey can’t feel much of anything these days, but, perhaps, with Chara by his side, he can pretend he can.

**Author's Note:**

> y'all must think i've been writing a lot lately, but syke! i've actually written like 500 words in the last 2 months. i have so many nearly-but-not-quite-finished stories, you don't even know.
> 
> might one day write a sequel to this? the adventures of chara & flowey (&frisk) among humans who have no idea monsters even exist. sounds fun and i can totally make fashion accessory!flowey happen, heck yea


End file.
